Centrical names Steve Hoechster director of communications

NEW YORK: Centrical, an employee engagement and performance company, has named Steve Hoechster to the newly created role of director of communications.

Centrical’s platform drives employee engagement via gamification, performance management tools and microlearning. Microlearning happens when employees are exposed to small bits of information during the day, instead of training sessions that take them away from their work.

The company has offices in New York and Israel and counts companies such as Microsoft, Unilever and Novartis as clients.

Hoechster reports to Centrical CMO Geoff Smith and started in the job in September, after consulting with the company for several months.

"I came in at a point where they were wrestling with the realization that comes from the question, ‘Do we need to rebrand ourselves because we have evolved as a company?’" he said. Centrical was previously known as GamEffective.

Centrical does not currently work with a PR agency. Hoechster’s remit includes external and internal comms as well as content marketing and social media.

"It’s the classic earned, owned, paid media construct," he added. "Internal comms includes both employees and channel partners. And in content marketing it’s demand generation and thought leadership, as well as events, sponsorships and CEO positioning and visibility."

Hoechster said he is initially focused on the demand generation activities and raising Centrical’s profile with the press.

"The company is split between New York and Israel," he said. "We’ve stepped up the company’s profile in Israel - the next logical thing is to do that over here."

Prior to joining Centrical, Hoechster ran his own consultancy for just under seven years, according to LinkedIn. Before that, Hoechster was an SVP at GW Communications, CMO for software company Aithent, and an SVP at 5W Public Relations. He also did stints at ElsterGroup, Havas and Edelman.